Hip Pain during straddle split - Suspicious of Hip Flexor

Hey guys

Recently, I've developed a really bad pain in my hip joints while doing straddle splits stretches or any stretches that move the knees apart laterally. I mentioned to Kit before I bought his book, and he said he thought it sounded like a hip flexor issue.

I stretched quite a bit and the pain decreased until recently. And this time, it's in both hip joints. I'm fairly certain it's something about my hip flexors because I spend most of my day sitting and studying or sitting and working. It sucks, but it's the way I have to do things.

Eccentric stretches for the hip flexors are planned as soon as I can get a good body band (just waiting for that prize money to come in), because I have great hopes for that since conventional stretching for the hip flexors hasn't been working very well for me. Lately, my hips hurt even when I stretch the hip flexors. Like, I don't even feel a stretch in the hip flexors much, I actually just feel the hip pain and can't go further into the stretch.

I don't think I'm stretching too hard. In fact, I only stretch hard (with C&R) once a week.

Please offer any suggestions you have, because this is a really serious concern for me and I have to figure it out! 

I am willing to try anything.

Thanks very much in advance.

you know, the same thing has been happening to me. i've put aside my side split because of this reason

question, how is your internal rotation? 

because my origin of hip discomfort was improperly firing pelvic floor muscles. 

yesterday, I was working with my swivel hips and I'm stagnating in around the same area. 

do you get hip pop? like your hip pops from doing certain movements? 

KeilaniG said:

you know, the same thing has been happening to me. i've put aside my side split because of this reason

 

question, how is your internal rotation? 

 

because my origin of hip discomfort was improperly firing pelvic floor muscles. 

 

yesterday, I was working with my swivel hips and I'm stagnating in around the same area. 

 

do you get hip pop? like your hip pops from doing certain movements? 

Hi Keilani,

Sorry to hear you have the same kind of problem... maybe we will both be able to get it figured out now.

- My internal rotation is not too bad. sPL/PE1 iM wasn't very good to start with, but it has improved a lot and is still improving fairly quickly. If it was that, though, it seems like my hips would be feeling better not worse.

- Improperly firing pelvic floor muscles? I will read on it and find out what it is...

- Yeah, when I was younger I used to a lot of hip pops while doing leg raises. I read that it was probably just some tendons (if I remember correctly) getting caught and then just popping back (in retrospect, it sounds unhealthy) and that if it wasn't painful it wasn't a problem.

What type of prep are you doing before the side split?  Any low lunges in there?  For some hip issues as you describe I'd suggest low lunge, the point being to open the hip on the back knee down side.  Hands up or down is up to you, feel it out to see what works best or do both.  

Another exercise I'd try is to do a squat for time.   Start with knees wide, back flat, tailbone reaching for the ground, heels on the ground if you can.  After a few minutes there take a break and then go back into the squat but this time with knees closer together in front of your chest.  Here, you want to attempt to rotate your hips in a way that your knees move together.  It's a very fine movement, subtle, but you will feel it in your hips.  

jl5555 said:

What type of prep are you doing before the side split?  Any low lunges in there?  For some hip issues as you describe I'd suggest low lunge, the point being to open the hip on the back knee down side.  Hands up or down is up to you, feel it out to see what works best or do both.  

 

Another exercise I'd try is to do a squat for time.   Start with knees wide, back flat, tailbone reaching for the ground, heels on the ground if you can.  After a few minutes there take a break and then go back into the squat but this time with knees closer together in front of your chest.  Here, you want to attempt to rotate your hips in a way that your knees move together.  It's a very fine movement, subtle, but you will feel it in your hips.  

Thanks for the suggestions, jl5555. I will try those today and post back about how they feel.

I am already doing a few bulgarian lunges every once in a while, but I will try stepping lunges with hands up instead for a while.

I'll try to post a video on the squats as it's an interesting move.  

As for the lunges, I prefer static, holding the lunge with minor movements to work into the hip stretch.

Further on, if you feel that your hip flexor is stretched out well but are still feeling impingement when folded try half splits with focus on pulling back the hip of the forward foot while fully folding over.

Thanks a lot. I will try those things tomorrow, and put them into my training regularly to see what happens.

What do you mean by folded and half splits?

Hummmmm....... you are only talking about doing something more Patrick... Have you tried resting your hips for a week or 10 days?

You do MA intensively if I remember correctly; your hip is painful, then both hips... It could be a mild case of inflammation that just needs to cool down a little bit.

FredInChina said:

Hummmmm....... you are only talking about doing something more Patrick... Have you tried resting your hips for a week or 10 days?

You do MA intensively if I remember correctly; your hip is painful, then both hips... It could be a mild case of inflammation that just needs to cool down a little bit.

Hi Fred, Thanks.

Yeah, I do train intensely most of the time; however, in the three weeks preceding the tournament last Saturday, I did very light training because I was sick and because I had a deload week. My hips should be rested if they needed it. They actually feel mostly OK except for when I'm doing deep wide squats or stretching in the straddle split.

I posted a short video regarding squat for hip flexor help.  The first part is pretty standard squat, knees relaxed out, focus more on getting the heels on the ground, the back flat and the tailbone moving towards the floor.  In the second part you see me with my knees much closer together and then actively pressing them together.  This works the hips nicely.  

Thanks a ton, jl5555. I will practice those regularly and see how I feel.

forgive my lack of anatomical lingo, but would working this deep squat with knees actively pressed towards each other help in restoring internal hip rotation? 

Depends on the relative width of the feet and the hips.

knees together, feet at hip width will put you at very slight internal rotation, with stretching of glut max and posterior fibers of glut medius and minimus, for sure. Hard to say whether there will be much piriformis stretching, but some of the deeper hip rotators will stretch.

Patrick: Have you seen Matt Wichlinski's video on the heavy band hip distraction squat?

Joshua Naterman said:

Depends on the relative width of the feet and the hips.

 

knees together, feet at hip width will put you at very slight internal rotation, with stretching of glut max and posterior fibers of glut medius and minimus, for sure. Hard to say whether there will be much piriformis stretching, but some of the deeper hip rotators will stretch.

that sounds excellent. 

I think I might have run into a situation similar to Ewethestuff. my swivel hips hit a "wall" of some sort and i don't know how to work around it. you mentioned the thomas test, i should do it and based on the results stretch out my hip flexors with added volume on the tighter leg? 

I'm thinking of visiting a professional on this matter but the last time i went to my chiropractor he said that muscle imbalances are nothing to be worried about, so i...quite honestly, i lost my respect for him as a professional. 

I've solved more here on this forum than visiting my own health specialists and im beginning to question their level of preparation. 

thoughts? 

Joshua Naterman said:

Depends on the relative width of the feet and the hips.

 

knees together, feet at hip width will put you at very slight internal rotation, with stretching of glut max and posterior fibers of glut medius and minimus, for sure. Hard to say whether there will be much piriformis stretching, but some of the deeper hip rotators will stretch.

 

Patrick: Have you seen Matt Wichlinski's video on the heavy band hip distraction squat?

Josh - Yes, I have. I've been keeping it in the back of my mind since seeing it because it seemed like something that could be very beneficial for me. I'm just waiting to get some good body bands, but I'm going to start right away once I get them.

KeilaniG said:

thoughts? 

There are very many not-so-well educated doctors, chiropractors, physical therapists, etc.

Patrick Smith said:

There are very many not-so-well educated doctors, chiropractors, physical therapists, etc.

i'm willing to travel, if it means not resorting to invasive surgery.

edit: or letting my injury get to that point or aggravate it with training.

KeilaniG said:

i'm willing to travel, if it means not resorting to invasive surgery.

 

edit: or letting my injury get to that point or aggravate it with training.

I meant on the fact that you've benefited much more from this forum than from seeing your doctor, but that's a good attitude. Ever heard of Pete Egosque? He has a book called, "Pain Free." I highly recommend it, although I don't know much about your problem.

It is hard to find practitioners that really understand what's going on with musculoskeletal issues, and that's partially because we don't have all the answers yet, but the average level of ability is rising every year ( I think), in part due to the [increasingly] widely available continuing education, from free Youtube videos to high quality CEU's.

I love Pain Free, I think that it is a very easy to understand introduction to the world of musculoskeletal rehabilitation. For 15-ish bucks, it's a great investment.

I think that the first thing everyone should do, after getting F1 and preferably H1, is get Kit's stretching books.

Get your Thomas test on video so that you can see for yourself. Sometimes it feels fine but you're really lying there with a 45 degree angle at the knee... 0_o

I've tried the hip dislocates a la Mwich and also the mobility wod guy.  Maybe it's just me but I find it extremely difficult to "feel" what I'm doing with that giant rubber band wrapped around my thigh.  I proposed my squat squeezes because, for me, I can actually feel my hip socket in that position and I find I have a better awareness of what I'm doing down there.  I can actually feel my hip stretching out as I actively rotate my knees in and out.  Plus I get a nice squat practice to boot.  

Joshua Naterman said:

.......

Patrick: Have you seen Matt Wichlinski's video on the heavy band hip distraction squat?

I know that the above won't do much for your piriformis and if that's what you think you need then I suggest low lunge hands down with ankle rollout on the forward foot to "open" your hip.  I find it much more preferable to the classic pigeon pose in terms of ability to "feel" the hip opening.  I'll post a video of that if anyone wants.

Further, there is something to doing exercises that incorporate knee presses together.  In class the other night the instructor had us doing these in chair pose and squat as obdurator strengthening moves.  Really interesting feeling.  Good moves for hernia issues maybe?

I just do airplane variations for deep hip muscles, with varying degrees of hip flexion to target different muscles.

I don't know that these will do much for hernias since these are not pelvic floor muscles, strictly speaking, but they probably won't hurt. If they do, don't do them

The best distraction stuff requires two partners. The squats that Matt shows are cool, but are no substitute for proper distraction mobilizations. Still, they can feel really good if you are impinging a small bit of tissue.

The only thing those squat knee things do for me is crush important bits. I feel nothing in the hips, but perhaps other people will get something from them.

What is an airplane variation?

It's when you are in a standing scale (basically the end position of a single leg deadlift, but with straight legs), which looks like you are pretending to be an airplane if you stick your arms out to the side Hence the name.

I suggest using a solid object in front of you for balance for the next part, and giving yourself a LOT of self spotting at first.
 These muscles are very weak in a lot of people, and a tear would suck.

What you do from here is pretend like you're on a rotisserie spit. There is a rod going from the top of your head all the way down your spine. You rotate on that axis, and ONLY move at the hip. This is hard to learn, and will be easy when done incorrectly. As you get used to it, and learn to actually use deeper hip muscles instead of twisting at the spine first, you will find that this is actually very difficult, and even 5 reps may be too much.

You can play around with bending the supporting leg, which will change the hip flexion angle, and also inclining the body at the hip, which also changes the angle. Changing the angle of hip flexion changes the distribution of work among the deep hip muscles. Play around with that if you like.

UPDATE

Ok, for the last 3 months I have been doing both the squat exercises that jl5555 mentioned and the band distracted squats Joshua Naterman mentioned, and they have both helped a little bit for a little while. At first, the band distracted squats helped a lot but overtime they stopped helping much. After a while it got so bad that I could barely kick above my waist with my right leg and hardly much higher with my left leg. As kicks are my strong point in my current sparring ability, I was very concerned about how I would be able to compete in the tournament of July 20th.

About a week and a half ago, I decided to try something a bit different. I started by doing 30-50 leg raises per leg per direction (front, side, and back). Then I would do about 10 minutes of soft tissue work all over my legs, hips, and back. Following that I would go through Kit Laughlin's daily stretches/positions, and then (every other day) I would do a hard stretching session of a selection of stretches from Kit Laughlin's book (including stretches for the calves, hips, legs, and back). 

During my last intense session (Tuesday), I realized I had restored nearly all of the ROM I had before this impingement began. I wish I had stumbled on this sooner. 

I've been sick for the last two weeks with a head cold, so we'll have to see how this tournament goes but I am very excited for the future of my kicking. 

Edit: I forgot to mention that I have been doing the above routine daily.

Patrick Smith said:

UPDATE

 

 

Ok, for the last 3 months I have been doing both the squat exercises that jl5555 mentioned and the band distracted squats Joshua Naterman mentioned, and they have both helped a little bit for a little while. At first, the band distracted squats helped a lot but overtime they stopped helping much. After a while it got so bad that I could barely kick above my waist with my right leg and hardly much higher with my left leg. As kicks are my strong point in my current sparring ability, I was very concerned about how I would be able to compete in the tournament of July 20th.

 

About a week and a half ago, I decided to try something a bit different. I started by doing 30-50 leg raises per leg per direction (front, side, and back). Then I would do about 10 minutes of soft tissue work all over my legs, hips, and back. Following that I would go through Kit Laughlin's daily stretches/positions, and then (every other day) I would do a hard stretching session of a selection of stretches from Kit Laughlin's book (including stretches for the calves, hips, legs, and back). 

 

During my last intense session (Tuesday), I realized I had restored nearly all of the ROM I had before this impingement began. I wish I had stumbled on this sooner. 

 

I've been sick for the last two weeks with a head cold, so we'll have to see how this tournament goes but I am very excited for the future of my kicking. 

that is epic and somewhat freaky.

the other day, i started doing active straddle splits while laying supine and engaging PPT during my warm up along with prone reverse leg lifts. hip engagement win! 

do you do it max ROM? (push for new ROM or stay within existing ROM and maximize that 

also, do you do one set of multiples? or super set them? ('ve been doing sets of 10 on each)

glad you're doing great!